


All That Time, Never Truly Seeing

by yourekindof_weird



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV), Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, they're all demigods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourekindof_weird/pseuds/yourekindof_weird
Summary: Big Red knows four things for certain:1- EJ Caswell has an imperial gold spear.2- Nini Salazar-Roberts has a wire-thingy that’s also made of imperial gold.3- Red just killed a cyclops with the help of Nini and her wire-thingy.4- He now has to help EJ kill yet another cyclops....Or, Everyone is a demigod but nobody knows that everyone else is also a demigod. How they haven't all been killed by monsters yet is a mystery.
Relationships: Big Red/Ricky Bowen (HSM: The Series), Carlos/Seb Matthew-Smith
Comments: 1
Kudos: 38





	1. All At Once, Everything is Different

**Author's Note:**

> I love writing crossovers so here this is. Hope you like it!
> 
> Title and chapter titles from "I See the Light" - Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore (Tangled).

**Red**

Big Red sort of wishes he actually had stayed home by pretending to be sick. He starts wishing that approximately thirty seconds after the cyclops attack him during lunch. At least he’s in the school parking lot and not the cafeteria, so there aren’t any witnesses. By that he means witnesses to the monsters  _ and  _ to his total and utter destruction. 

There are  _ three  _ of them and only one of him. He knows he isn’t getting out of this alive.

And it’s stupid, because he shouldn’t have even been in the parking lot. He should have been in the cafeteria with everyone. But Red had been an idiot and he’d kissed Ricky while they were hanging out in Red’s basement. Ricky ran away.  _ That  _ is why he’s in the parking lot; to avoid Ricky.

So it’s stupid. Big Red is going to die because he fell for Ricky  _ fucking  _ Bowen. So, so  _ stupid _ . 

A cyclops lunges for him, but being a son of Hermes and all, he’s pretty good at dodging. Malcom from the Athena cabin says it’s called being ‘nimble.’ He escapes the cyclops' clutches.

He wishes that he had his sword, but unlike Percy Jackson, Red’s sword doesn’t turn into a pen, so it’s hidden in his locker. All he has on him right now is a single dagger. 

He knows he’s going to die, but he sure as hell isn’t gonna go down not trying.

Another cyclops lunges.

It never even makes it to Red. A spear protrudes from it’s chest.

**Ricky**

Red’s been avoiding Ricky all day. Ricky knows why, but he wishes… well he wishes he hadn’t run away when Red had kissed him.

The thing is, Ricky was scared. He pretty much figured out the whole ‘ _ Oh shit, I’m bisexual’ _ thing while Red’s lips were on his. He freaked out and just  _ ran.  _ And now he’s fucked everything up and Red is never gonna talk to him again. 

“Where’s Big Red?” Ej asks at lunch. “Ashlyn’s sick and she wanted me to tell him she has to call off their movie night.”

“Why can’t she just text him?” Ricky really doesn’t want to talk about Red right now.

“Her phone,” EJ hesitates but Ricky ignores it, “Is broken. She dropped it.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know where he is,” Ricky hates that he doesn’t know. He used to always know, and within just a few days everything had changed.

“Okay. I’m going to go find him then, since we don’t have rehearsal today,” EJ stands up from the table. Nini does too.

“I’ll go with you,” she says. “I’m worried about him. He’s been acting weirdly.”

It’s strange, Ricky thinks, that they’re all such good friends now. Even EJ looks concerned when Nini mentions that Red might not be okay.

He watches them go and hopes that they don’t find out it’s his fault that Red’s been acting strangely. 

Ricky buries his face in his arms on the table and groans.

**Gina**

The dentist office is a ten minute stroll from the school, so Gina sends her mom away after the appointment and walks. It’s lunch time anyway, so it’s not like she’s missing classes by not getting a ride from her mom. 

She cuts through the school parking lot, humming songs from the musical as she goes. She rounds a line of cars and comes face to face with… well she isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, actually.

Three  _ huge  _ men are surrounding Big Red, EJ is pulling a portable umbrella out of his backpack, and Nini is taking a bracelet off her wrist. 

EJ hits the ‘open’ button on his umbrella, but instead of opening, it transforms. It gets longer and longer and a bit narrower, too. The end gets sharper and sharper until the thing in EJ’s hands is no longer an umbrella. It’s a golden spear.

And EJ shoves it right through one of the men’s chests. The man howls and… turns to dust? The other two men round on EJ and Gina finally gets a good look at them. They each only have one eye. Gina’s mouth falls open and she takes a step back.

Nini strikes next. With a fierce look on her face, she jumps onto the back of one of the monsters. What had once been a bracelet around her wrist is now a shining, gold garrote around the monster’s neck. 

Nini’s maneuver leaves the monster open for attack. Surprisingly, it isn’t EJ that strikes, but rather it’s Big Red who plunges a bronze dagger into the monster’s chest.

While Nini and Red take down that monster, EJ fights off the other. Unfortunately, the monster isn’t making it easy. It’s the only monster with a sword, after all. 

EJ can’t seem to get close enough, even with his long spear. 

Gina ducks behind some cars and pulls her mini flashlight- one she always carries around- from her pocket. 

**Red**

Big Red knows four things for certain:

1- EJ Caswell has an imperial gold spear.

2- Nini Salazar-Roberts has a wire-thingy that’s also made of imperial gold.

3- Red just killed a cyclops with the help of Nini and her wire-thingy.

4- He now has to help EJ kill yet another cyclops.

Before he can follow through with number 4, a  _ hammer _ swings down and hits the final cyclops on the head so hard that he drops his sword. The cyclops wails and EJ uses the opportunity to run him through.

The gold dust falls to the ground to reveal Gina Porter, war hammer grasped confidently in her hands. 

“Big Red, Gina, you’re demigods?” Nini exclaims.

“You’re a demigod?” Red gasps out. Five minutes ago, he thought he was as good as dead. Now, he can’t even think straight. (His mind wants to make a gay joke about himself at that but he ignores the urge).

“I think we’re  _ all  _ demigods,” Gina says.

“I haven’t seen either of you at Camp Jupiter, thought,” EJ tells her.

“Wait, you’re  _ Roman _ ?” Red asks. Okay, it makes sense that EJ’s Roman, actually, but still. 

“So you guys are Greek?” Nini asks.

Red says “yes” at the same time that Gina says, “What? No. I’m Norse.”

“Norse?” EJ’s brow furrows.

“Norse,” Gina confirms. “My dad is Thor.”

“Wow,” Nini says. Red agrees with that sentiment. His mind is reeling. “My dad is Bacchus.”

“The god of wine?” Red asks. It doesn’t seem to fit with who Nini is.

“And the god of madness and  _ theater _ ,” Nini emphasizes. Oh, Red thinks, that makes more sense. 

“My dad is Mars,” EJ pipes up. Not  _ that  _ makes sense. EJ  _ is  _ captain of the water polo team, after all. “What about you, Red?”

“Oh. My dad is Hermes,” Red tells them. He hears a noise and quickly tugs his dagger away again. EJ follows suit, clicking a button on his spear. It becomes an umbrella, of all things. Nini wraps her wire-thingy around her wrist and it ends up looking like a bracelet. Gina turns her hammer into a mini flashlight.

The noise is coming from the next row of cars over. Red peeks across them and his eyes go wide. Two dracanae enter the school.

EJ laughs. “They went right by us.”

“That’s because they aren’t after us,” Big Red takes off towards the school, dread settling deep in his gut. 

**Ricky**

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch, but Ricky doesn’t get up. Two dracanae just entered the cafeteria and one is staring right at him. They ignore the passing students and slowly advance towards Ricky. 

“See you later, babe,” he hears Carlos say to Seb. Ricky watches Seb walk out the doors, feeling Carlos’ presence behind him. Once Seb is safely out of the cafeteria and past the dracanae, Carlos sits down beside Ricky.

“Hey,” Carlos says.

“Hey,” Ricky responds.

By the time the dracanae are ten feet away, the cafeteria is empty, save for Ricky and Carlos.

“Do you have your bow?” Carlos whispers.

“In my bag,” Ricky whispers back. Carlos nods. Ricky reaches down and opens his bag, pulling out a measuring ruler.

The Hephaestus cabin gave Ricky a special bow that folds down into a small ruler. They also gave him a pencil case full of arrows, all disguised as pencils and pens. Apparently, when he pulls one out of the case, it should grow into a full length arrow. He’s never tried them before, since the bow and arrows are just prototypes. He hopes to the gods that they work.

Beside Ricky, Carlos stands, and in one, fluid motion, throws a knife at one of the monsters. It’s one throwing knife in a set of several, all attached to a belt that he’s pulled from his own bag and wrapped around his waist.

The knife gets deflected with ease, but it distracts the dracanae enough for Ricky to prepare his bow. He fires an arrow at each of them, but their spears come up to block them. The arrows clatter uselessly to the ground.

The problem is, Ricky and Carlos both have weapons useful for long distance. Red is the one with a sword. The dracanae are too close.

Ricky grabs his pencil case of arrows and moves backwards, climbing over tables as he goes. Carlos moves beside him, almost in sync. They reach the last table and Ricky sets down the case again, drawing an arrow and firing. This time it lands true in one of the monster’s shoulders. It doesn’t kill her, though.

Thankfully, she lowers her arms in surprise and Carlos’ next knife hits sinks right between her eyes. She turns to dust. Her friend hisses angrily and advances on them menacingly. Ricky gulps.


	2. It’s Like the Fog Has Lifted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t you need to die with a weapon in your hand to go to Valhalla?” Kourtney questions. 
> 
> “Does a basketball count?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kourtney is here this chapter and more secrets are revealed!

**Gina**

Gina follows Red into the school, because  _ apparently  _ there are even  _ more  _ demigods inside. How in the nine realms did Gina end up in a school that’s crawling with demigods?

“Who are they after?” EJ calls to Red, who’s… stopping at his locker?  
Red’s stop gives her, Nini, and EJ time to catch up to him, at least. When they do, it’s to the sight of Red pulling a sword out of his locker.

“You use a sword?” Nini asks, surprised.

“You keep it in your locker?” EJ adds.

“Yes,” Red says in answer to both of them. The bell rings and he takes off down the hall again. 

Gina follows him and realizes that he’s heading to the cafeteria. There’s a steady flow of students coming from it so they have to push their way through, probably setting them back a few seconds. Gina wonders what the mortals see in Red’s hands.

The crowd dies down, though, and soon they’re busting through the cafeteria doors.

Gina sees one snake-lady and a pile of dust. They’re in the right place.

“Ricky?” Nini whispers, incredulous. Gina follows her gaze. There, being cornered by the remaining snake-lady, stand Ricky and Carlos. Ricky has a bow in his hands and Carlos, a gleaming knife. Gina’s mouth drops open.

Red doesn’t hesitate, rushing in and slashing at the monster’s slithering leg. EJ runs in as the monster tries to retaliate, his spear only just managing to fully transform in time to block the monster’s blow. Red gives him a thankful look then continues to slash at the monster.

“EJ?” Carlos shouts.

Gina jumps into the fray, grabbing her flashlight and bringing her hammer down on the snake-lady’s chest. Nini follows soon after, unwrapping her garrote from her wrist.

An arrow sails past Gina’s head, then another and another. Knive’s fly by, too. While she, EJ, and Nini flinch away at first, so as not to get hit, Red seems wholly unbothered. Considering that he knew who the monsters were going after, Gina figures that he’s fought with Ricky and Carlos before, enough to know for certain that they’d never accidentally hit him. 

She swings her hammer.

**Red**

The final blow, if it can be called that, is Nini’s. She pulls so hard on her wire-thingy that the dracanae’s head pops off. It rolls to the ground and turns to dust. It’s body turns to dust, too, sending Nini tumbling to the floor.

Red finally looks at Ricky, who’s staring at the scene before him in wonder (and a bit of confusion).

Ricky has always looked hot with a bow and Red used to love watching his friend’s target practice at Camp Half-Blood. Now, seeing Ricky with a bow just makes Red sad, because he just had to go and ruin everything between him and Ricky. 

“Nini!” Carlos yells. “That was amazing!”

“I guess you’re a demigod too, then?” Nini responds.

Carlos grins, though it’s clear that his focus is on all of the cafeteria entrances, watching to see if more monsters arrive. “Yep, my mom is Aphrodite.”

Ricky frowns. “Did you four already know about each other being demigods?”

“As of ten minutes ago,” Gina says. 

“Yeah,” EJ collapses his spear into an umbrella again. “Red here got cornered by  _ three  _ cyclops in the parking lot.”

Red flushes. No need to bring that up, EJ. Red has never been very confident in his fighting abilities, not when Ricky is his friend. Ricky is  _ great  _ with a bow. Red is just mediocre with a sword. He’s been assured by lots of other demigods that he is, in fact, great with a sword, but Red doesn’t see it.

“He didn’t even have his sword!” Nini adds, with a proud tone that throws Red off for a second. “Helped fight them off with only a dagger!”

**Ricky**

Ricky’s heart stops. Red got cornered by three cyclops with only a dagger to defend himself?

It was Ricky’s fault that Red had been off alone in the first place. Ricky eyes Red to make sure he isn’t hurt. Red scowls at him. Their actions are so familiar that Ricky almost forgets that Red hates him now.

“What about you, Ricky?” Ricky must look extra confused because Nini laughs. “Which parent is a god?”

“Oh. My dad is Apollo,” Ricky tells her. She frowns, but Ricky does not want to get into the fact that Mike Bowen isn’t his biological dad, even though his mom left Ricky with him. 

“Seriously?” EJ exclaims, and Ricky worries that he’ll have to get into it anyway. “Ashlyn’s dad is Apollo too! But the Roman one,” Oh. Does that make Ashlyn his half sister? How does it work with the whole Greek-Roman thing? “Mine is Mars.”

“And my dad is Bacchus,” Nini says. That’s strange, Ricky thinks.

“The god of wine?”

“Why does everyone-” Nini grumbles, “Ugh. Nevermind. Yes, but he’s also the god of theater.”

“Oh. And you, Gina?”

“I’m Norse. My dad is Heimdall.”

“Like in  _ Thor _ ?”

“Actual Thor is very different from Marvel Thor,” Gina says, and it looks to Ricky like there’s a story behind that, but Gina doesn’t tell it.

“Hold on,” Red puts a hand up. “Ashlyn is a demigod, too?”

EJ hums. “The gods really like my family, or something,” he says. “Oh! She actually wanted me to tell you that she has to cancel movie night.”

“Is she okay?”

“She wanted me to tell you that she’s sick, but I guess I can tell you what actually happened, now. She got attacked by two  _ Venti _ .”

**Gina**

“Huh?” Gina says, bewildered. “She got attacked in a Starbucks?”  
“What?” EJ actually looked surprised that she has no idea what he’s talking about. “Right! You’re Norse. Sorry, she got attacked by two storm spirits. Luckily, she was hanging out with Jason Grace when it happened. She’s okay, though.”

“Jason was here?” Carlos exclaims. Gina has no idea who Jason Grace is, but apparently, well it looks like everyone else knows who he is. “Was Piper?”

“Nah, just Jason, I think,” EJ says.

Red leans over to Gina. “Piper is Carlos’ half sister and Jason is her boyfriend,” he whispers to her. 

The others end up bringing up a bunch of other people that Gina doesn’t know. They mention someone named Percy Jackson, then a Frank Zhang. Ricky says that Leo Valdez made the cool bow and arrows he’s got and everyone looks impressed. Carlos says that he should introduce EJ to someone named Clarisse. 

How was it, Gina wonders, that none of her endearingly idiotic friends realized just how many demigods go to the same school, much less that they all know a bunch of the same people? At least Gina has an excuse, she only just moved here this year. Everyone else, though…

“-Annabeth Chase! You know her?” Nini is saying. “Ashlyn and I have wanted to meet her forever.”

_ That  _ is a name that Gina actually recognizes. “Are you talking about the Annabeth Chase whose cousin is named Magnus? Magnus Chase?” 

Gina hasn’t ever actually met Magnus Chase, but she’s good friends with Samirah al-Abbas, who talks about (and sometimes complains about) Magnus pretty often. Samirah mentioned once that Magnus has a Greek demigod cousin.

“I think so,” Ricky says. “Isn’t he… dead?”

“He’s in Valhalla, so…” Gina doesn’t know how to put it into simple terms. “Sort of?”

“Who’s in Valhalla?” everyone jumps at the new voice. Gina quickly puts away her hammer, tucking her flashlight into her pocket again. Nini starts to wrap her garrote around her wrist again but it’s sort of pointless now, it’s already been seen. Same goes for Red’s sword and Carlos’ belt of knives. 

“Uh, hi Kourtney,” Nini says awkwardly. Gina wants to hide her face.

“Hi,” Kourtney waves a little and begins to approach them. “Is there a meeting for the musical I didn’t know about?”

Red says “no” at the same time that Carlos says “I thought I told you about it Yesterday.”

**Red**

Oh Gods. First of fall, Red feels bad because it definitely looks like Kourtney has been left out of something. Second, he doesn’t know what his sword looks like to her. Third, Ricky looks particularly adorable trying to hide his bow behind his back despite the fact that it can  _ turn into a ruler _ . 

“What does Valhalla have to do with the musical?” Kourtney asks, going with Carlos’ response to her earlier question.

“What if Troy were to die?” Ricky blurts. He immediately flushes red, and Big Red can’t help but like him even more, if that’s possible. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Kourtney’s flabbergasted expression is mirrored in almost everyone else’s faces too. 

“Then he’d go to Valhalla,” Ricky says, grasping at straws. 

“Um, no,” Kourtney says, which isn’t exactly what Red was expecting her to say to… all  _ that.  _

“No?” Ricky’s head tilts slightly to the side and that, too, is adorable.

“Don’t you need to die with a weapon in your hand to go to Valhalla?” Kourtney questions. 

“Does a basketball count?” 

“He also would need to have died with bravery,” Kourtney continues. “A ‘brave and valiant death’ or something like that.”

“Why do you know so much about Valhalla?” Gina asks. For some reason, she sounds sort of suspicious, though Red wouldn’t know why. 

“I have a friend in Boston who knows a lot about Norse mythology,” Kourtney says. “He owns a clothing store on Beacon Street.”

“Oh my gods,” Gina stares at Kourtney in disbelief, “You know Blitzen?”

“ _ You  _ know Blitzen?” Kourtney exclaims. Red does not know Blitzen, but it seems like nobody else does either (other than Kourtney and Gina), so it’s okay. 

“Who’s Blitzen?” EJ asks what everybody wants to know. He’s ignored.

“How do you know Blitzen?” Gina asks.

“He’s my brother,” Kourtney explains. Since when did Kourtney have a brother? In  _ Boston _ ? 

“He’s your brother?” Gina’s face twists into something Red can’t read. “You’re not a dwarf.”

“Dwarf? You know about...” Kourtney’s face does something equally unreadable. “Is this why Red has a sword, Ricky has a bow, and Carlos has a bunch of knives right now? And Nini, is that a garrote?”

Red would very much like to know what in Tartarus is going on.

“You’re all demigods,” Kourtney deduces. When nobody says anything, she must take it as a yes, because the next thing that comes out of her mouth surprises the shit out of Red. It shouldn’t, considering everything that’s happened today, but it does. “Blitz and I have the same mom. Freya.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you're liking the story so far!


End file.
